Thursday, 12 August 2010

I have been looking for some specific vocabulary games to use with my classes and I found some really interesting options. So I decided to share them with you!
I have chosen to categorize the results into:

Pre-school games

Games for specific vocabulary topics

Games for mixed vocabulary topics

Tools to create games

Pre-school gamesPre-school games
A variety of simple games for colours, shapes, animals, numbers and the alphabet.Do2learn
Another collection of games: colours, feelings, numbers…and more.ABCya!
Yet another collection of simple games.What colour is it?
A simple game about colours.

Games for specific vocabulary topicsActions and commands (based on suggestions by Larry Ferlazzo from his blog post)Subservient Chicken
Give orders t the chicken and watch him perform your commands… only if they are appropriate!Simon Sez Santa
Tell Santa what to do. Many languages to choose from!I Do Dog Tricks
Give order to the cute dog and watch him perform the actions.

Collections of gamesVocabulary Building Games Free English Lessons Online
More than 40 English vocabulary picture matching quizzes on a variety of topics such as Weather, Sports, Transport, etc created by Sue Lyon Jones.Word Games
A great collection of word games categorized by difficulty.Digital Dialects
A nice collection of simple games about numbers, colours, food, clothing and animals. The main page offers 60 languages to choose from! Learning chocolate
Great variety of topics and several types of games for each topic, including word recognition from audio recordings, matching, etc.ESL Fun Vocabulary Games
Picture labeling games on a variety of topics like parts of the house, school, pets, fruit, etc. You can also check the assorted vocabulary games menu for more options.Language Guide English
Lots of quizzes for more than 40 topics available in study and quiz modes. Learning Games for Kids
A great site with thousands of games. Check the vocabulary games section.

Games for mixed vocabulary topicsRain words
Complete the crossword by dragging the images to the appropriate place in the crossword. You can choose the level of difficulty.Fastr
A Flickr-fed game where you have to guess the tag for the given image.Photo Munchrs
You are given a tag and must click on the pictures that match it. I hear about this one from Nik Peachey in his Daily English Activities blog post.Vocab Sushi
Multiple Choice game to develop your vocabulary. Good for upper intermediate learners.Free Rice
Another multiple choice game. Your scores are translated into help for the World Food Programme.

Tools to create gamesEclipse crossword
An easy to use crossword puzzle creator.Word Magnets
Type or paste a text and get the word magnets for it to play around. I heard about this one from Russell Stannard, who has a detailed video about using it.

You will certainly need to explore them to see if they are appropriate for your context... I hope the list is a useful starting point!